Prof. Dr. Silvia Schultermandl

ENGLISCHES SEMINAR
© Schultermandl
ENGLISCHES SEMINAR
Chair of American Studies
Room ES 228
Johannisstr. 12-20
48143 Münster
Germany
T: +49 (0)251-83 24296
Silvia.Schultermandl@uni-muenster.de
Consultation hours: Tuesdays, 2:00-3:30 pm; please e-mail me in advance to schedule meetings.

  • Vita

    Akademische Ausbildung

    Venia legendi in American Studies, University of Graz, Austria Habilitation: “States of Ambivalence: Transnationalism as Aesthetic Experience in American Literature from Equiano to 9/11.”
    Dr. phil in American Studies, University of Graz, Austria Dissertation: “Unlinear Matrilineage: Mother-Daughter Relationships and the Politics of Location in Asian American and Caribbean American Literature.” summa cum laude
    Mag. phil. in English and American Studies, Media Studies, University of Graz

    Beruflicher Werdegang

    Professor and Chair of American Studies, University of Münster
    Associate Professor of American Studies, Department of American Studies, University of Graz
    Assistant Professor of American Studies, tenure track; Department of American Studies, University of Graz
    Fulbright Visiting Assistant Professor of American Studies, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts
    Assistant Professor, non-tenure-track; Department of American Studies, University of Graz
    Lecturer, English Department, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
    Post-doctoral research fellowship, Rutgers University
    Lecturer, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Graz
    Lecturer, English Department, New York College, Skopje

    Mitgliedschaften und Aktivitäten in Gremien

    Vice-President, Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS)
    Delegate of the European Association of American Studies
    Series Co-Editor, Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference, Palgrave Macmillan
    Board member, Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS)
    Editorial Board Member, Brill/Rodopi’s book series, Critical Approaches to Ethnic American Literature
    Editorial Advisory Board Member, WiN
    Editorial Board Member, ASIATIC
    ASA: American Studies Association
    Vice-President, Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS)
    DGfA: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Amerikastudien
    MLA: Modern Language Association
    Secretary, Austrian Association for American Studies (AAAS)
    Series Editor, Contributions to Transnational Feminism, LIT Verlag
    AAAS: Austrian Association of American Studies
    EAAS: European Association of American Studies
    MESEA: The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies of Europe and the Americas
    MELUS: The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States
    President and founding member of AYA, Austrian Committee of Post Graduate Students to the EAAS
    Editorial Board Member, for Interactions: Aegean Journal of English and American Studies

  • Information for Students

    IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR STUDENTS!

    In the interest of streamlining our correspondence and avoiding mis-communication, please take note of the following:

    * If you are interested in writing your BA or MA thesis with Prof. Dr. Schultermandl, please reach out beforehand to receive information on the process.

    * If you need a letter of recommendation, please include your CV, your letter of motivation, the full postal address of the agency to which you apply. Please reach out 4-6 weeks before your application deadline.

  • Publications

    • Books (Monographs)

      Schultermandl Silvia. Ambivalent Transnational Belonging in American Literature (Routledge, 2021).

      Schultermandl Silvia. Transnational Matrilineage: Mother-Daughter Conflicts in Asian American Literature (Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2009).

      Books (Edited Collections)

      Schultermandl, Silvia, Jana Aresin, Si Sophie Pages Whybrew, Dijana Simic (eds.). Affective Worldmaking - Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality (Transcript Verlag, 2022).

      Schultermandl, Silvia and Klaus Rieser (eds.). Ethnicity and Kinship in Contemporary European and North American Literature (Routledge, 2021).

      Friedman, May and Silvia Schultermandl (eds.): Click and Kin: Transnational Identity and Quick Media (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).

      Eckhard, Petra, Klaus Rieser, and Silvia Schultermandl (eds.): Localizing Global Phenomena: The Contact Spaces of American Culture (Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2012).

      Friedman, May and Silvia Schultermandl (eds.). Growing Up Transnational: Identity and Kinship in a Global Era (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011).

      Schultermandl, Silvia and Toplu Sebnem (eds.). A Fluid Sense of Self: The Politics of Transnational Identity in Anglophone Literatures (Vienna: LIT Verlag, 2010).


      Book Contributions

      Schultermandl, Silvia, et al. 2022. “Introduction: Affective Worldmaking: Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality.” Affective Worldmaking. Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality, edited by Silvia Schultermandl et al., transcript Verlag, pp. 13–44, doi.org/10.1515/9783839461419-002.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2022. “Quick Media Feminisms and the Affective Worldmaking of Hashtag Activism.” Affective Worldmaking. Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality, edited by Silvia Schultermandl et al., transcript Verlag, pp. 185-200, doi.org/10.1515/9783839461419-016.

      Cvetkovich, Ann, and Silvia Schultermandl. 2022. “Affective Worldmaking is Times of Crisis: An Interview.” Affective Worldmaking. Narrative Counterpublics of Gender and Sexuality, edited by Silvia Schultermandl et al., transcript Verlag, pp. 75-83, doi.org/10.1515/9783839461419-007.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2022. “Jacques Derridas Theorem der ‚Hostipitality‘ im europäischen Film zu Migration, Flucht, und Asyl.” Grazer Forschungsbeiträge zu Frieden und Konflikt, edited by Maximilian Lakitsch and Werner Suppanz, Graz University Library Publishing, pp. 364-381, doi.org/10.25364/978-3-903374-03-4-18.

      Rieser, Susanne, and Silvia Schultermandl. 2022. “‘A Modicum of Humanity’: An Interview with Michel Gasco and Parisa Delshad, Directors of The Sounds of Hospitality: Migrant Musicians in Europe.” Forms of Migration, edited by Stefan Maneval and Jennifer A. Reimer, Falschrum Book, pp. 136-145.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2021. “Palimpsestuous Historiographies of Asian American Activism in I Hotel.” Approaches to Teaching the Works of Karen Tei Yamashita, edited by Ruth Hsu and Pamela Thoma, MLA, pp. 71-75.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2021. “Moving Borders, Shifting Territories: Border-Polyvalences in Karen Tei Yamashita’s Tropic of Orange.” Narratives of Border Crossings: Literary Approaches and Negotiations, edited by Astrid M. Fellner, Nomos, pp. 21-40.

      Schultermandl, Silvia and Klaus Rieser. 2021. ‘Introduction: Ethnicity and Kinship in Contemporary European and North American Literature.’ Ethnicity and Kinship in Contemporary European and Northamerican Literature, edited by Silvia Schultermandl and Klaus Rieser, Routledge, pp. 1-21.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2021. ‘Palimpsestuous Historiographies in Lisa Lowe’s "The Intimacies of Four Continents" and Karen Tei Yamashita’s "I-Hotel”.’ Palimpsests in Ethnic and Postcolonial Literature and Culture: Surfacing Histories, edited by Yiorgos Kalogeras, et.al., Palgrave Macmillan, 21-39.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2018. ‘Auto Assemblages in SNSs: Intermediality and Transnational Kinship in Online Academic Life Writing.’ Intermediality, Life Writing, and American Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches, edited by Winnie Balestrini Nassim and Ina Bergman Ina, Berlin: De Gruyter, 191-210.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2018. ‘Stuplimity and Quick Media Epistolarity in Lauren Myracle’s "Internet Girls Series”.’ The Epistolary Renaissance: A Critical Approach to Contemporary Letter Narratives in Anglophone Fiction, edited by Maria Loeschnigg Maria and Rebekka Schuh, Berlin: De Gruyter, 225-240.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2017. ‘Out of Line: Shifting Border Paradigms in Cooper, Morrison and Yamashita.’ Crossing Borders: Essays on Literature, Culture and Society in Honor of Amritjit Singh, edited by Tapan K. Basu and Tasneem Shahnaaz, Madison, New Jersey: Selbstverlag / Eigenverlag, 3-16 .

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2016. ‘Nature and the Oppressed Female Body in Nora Okja Keller’s "Ecofeminist Aesthetics” .’ Ecocriticism and Geocriticism: Overlapping Territories in Environmental and Spatial Literary Studies, edited by Christine M. Battista and Robert J. Tally Jr., New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 171-188.

      Friedman, May and Silvia Schultermandl. 2016. ‘Introduction.’ Click and Kin: Transnational Identity and Quick Media, edited by May Friedman and Silvia Schultermandl, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 3-24.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2016. ‘Of Literary Letters and IMs: American Epistolary Fiction as Regulative Fictions .’ Click and Kin: Transnational Identity and Quick Media, edited by May Friedman and Silvia Schultermandl, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 118-136.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2015. "Transnationale Familien als Ort fluider Identitäten." Spannungsfeld “Gesellschaftliche Vielfalt“: Begegnungen zwischen Wissenschaft und Praxis, herausgegeben von Katharina Scherke, Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript Verlag, 155-170.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2009. ‘Fighting for the Mother/Land: An Ecofeminist Reading of Linda Hogan's "Solar Storms”.’ Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Jeff Hunter, 265th Ed. Detroit, Michigan: Gale, 193-200.

      Entries in Encyclopediae (Book Contributions)

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2005. ‘Mei Ng.’ In Voices from the Gaps: Women Artists and Writers of Color, edited by University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy, 1–4. Selbstverlag / Eigenverlag.


      Research Articles (Journals)

      Schultermandl, Silvia; Ciftci, Gulsin; Reimer, Jennifer. 2022. ‘American Studies as Vulnerability Studies: Introduction.’ Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies 4, No. 1: 1–16. doi: 10.47060/jaaas.v4i1.195.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2019. ‘Online Life Writing.’ JAAAS 1.1: 143–150.

      Schultermandl, Silvia; Gerund, Katharina; Mrak, Anja. 2018. ‘The Affective Aesthetics of Transnational Feminism.’ WiN EAAS Women’s Network Journal 1: 1–23.

      Friedman, May and Silvia Schultermandl. 2018. ‘Introduction: Autobiography 2.0 and Quick Media Life Writing.’ Autobiography 2.0 and Quick Media Life Writing, special issue: Interactions: Studies in Communications and Culture 9.2: 143–154.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2018. ‘Reading for Connectivity: Aesthetics and Affect in Intermedial Autobiographies 2.0.’ Autobiography 2.0 and Quick Media Life Writing, special issue: Interactions: Studies in Communications and Culture 9.2: 251–263.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2014. ‘Aestheticizing Absence: Representations of the Twin Towers’ Shadow in 9/11 Literature and Film.’ Interactions 23.1-2, No. spring-fall 2014: 231–242.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2014. ‘'Imagination is a tricky power’: Transnationalism and Aesthetic Education in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Work.’ Asiatic 8.1, No. June 2014: 40–54.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2014. ‘Writing the Self Beyond the Nation-State: The Transnationalism of Olaudah Equiano’s "Interesting Narrative".’ Transnational Dimensions of Literature and the Arts. Special Issue of University of Bucharest Review 4.1: 32–45.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2011. ‘'What did any of it have to do with race?’: Afro-Asian Encounters as Global Narratives of Migration in Cristina García’s "Monkey Hunting”.’ Atlantic Studies 8.1: 93–107.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2011. ‘From Drug Mule to Miss America: American Exceptionalism and the Commodification of the ‘Other’ Woman in "Maria Full of Grace".’ The Journal of American Culture 34.3: 275–288.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2011. ‘The Politics of Transnational Memory in Amy Tan’s "The Joy Luck Club".’ Journal of Transnational American Studies 3.2.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2010. ‘Art Imitating Life?: Visual Turns in 9/11 Novels.’ Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Special Issue on 9/11 58.1: 39–54.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2008. ‘(Breaking out of) The ‘Literary Ghetto’: Where to Place Asian American Writers, Or De-Essentializing Canonicity.’ Hungarian Journal of English and American Studies 14.2: 287–302.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2007. ‘Rewriting American Democracy: Language and Cultural (Dis)Locations in Esmeralda Santiago and Julia Álvarez.’ The Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 28.1, No. Jan-Apr: 3–15.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2007. ‘Writing Rape, Trauma, and Transnationality onto the Female Body: Matrilineal Em-body-ment in Nora Okja Keller’s "Comfort Woman” .’ Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 7.2: 71–100.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2007. ‘Writing Against The Grain: The Cross-Over Genres of Maxine Hong Kingston’s "The Woman Warrior, China Men, and The Fifth Book of Peace”.’ Interactions 16.2: 111–122.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2007. ‘Hooked on the American Dream?: Transnational Sexual Labor in Nora Okja "Keller’s Fox Girl”.’ Feminist Studies in English 15.2: 159–184.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2006. ‘Motherhood and Mothering as Site of Differences in Barbara Kingsolver’s "Pigs in Heaven”.’ Journal of the Association for Research on Mothering 8.1+2: 223–232.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2006. ‘Introduction. “Against the (Main)stream: New Perspectives on Asian American and Asian British Studies”.’ Interactions 15.2: 1–12.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2005. ‘Fighting for the Mother/Land: An Ecofeminist Reading of Linda Hogan's "Solar Storms” .’ SAIL: Studies in American Indian Literature 17.3: 67–84.


      Special Issues of Journals

      Fackler, Katharina, and Silvia Schultermandl, editors. 2023. “Kinship as Critical Idiom in Oceanic Studies.” Special issue of Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 195-225, doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2022.2079900.

      Schultermandl, Silvia, Gulsin Ciftci, and Jennifer A. Reimer, editors. “American Studies as Vulnerability Studies.” Special issue of JAAAS: Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, 2022.


      Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2024. "Der Westen und das Konstrukt eines global sisterhood: Eine transnational feministische Debatte." andererseits - Yearbook of Transatlantic German Studies, vol. 11/12, pp. 439-448, doi.org/10.1515/9783839469811-042.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2023. “Solidarity, Archival Activism, and the Ethics of Storytelling in Valeria Luiselli’s Lost Children Archive.” Amerikastudien / American Studies, vol. 68, no. 4, pp. 459-472, doi.org/10.33675/AMST/2023/4/6.

      Fackler, Katharina and Silvia Schultermandl, editors. 2023. “Kinship as Critical Idiom in Oceanic Studies.” Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 195-225, doi.org/10.1080/14788810.2022.2079900.

      Schultermandl, Silvia, Gulsin Ciftci, and Jennifer A. Reimer. 2022. “American Studies as Vulnerability Studies: Introduction.” JAAAS: Journal of the Austrian Association for American Studies, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-16, doi.org/10.47060/jaaas.v4i1.195.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2022. “Insta-Girlhood: Selfies as auto-performative responses to Sexism and Misogyny.” Journal of Contemporary Philology, vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 7-19, doi.org/10.37834/JCP2252009s.

      Schultermandl, Silvia. 2021. “Catharine Maria Sedgwick’s Clarence, Sentimental Kinship, and the Transnational American Novel of Manner.” JTAS, vol. 12, no. 2, 2021, pp. 50-79, doi.org/10.5070/T812255659.

  • Research Interests

    • American fiction and life writing, from the 18th century to the present
    • Literary theory
    • Transnational American Studies
    • Family and kinship studies
    • Transnational Feminism
    • Social media

  • Current Projects

    • Erasmus+ KA220 MigraMedia
      The project links the analysis of the representation of migration in visual media to specific social and transnational contexts. The activities engender exchange within the consortium and study programs. The objective of the partnership is to promote inclusion and diversity in European societies by exposing students to migration films and other media representations of migration.

    The project aims to strengthen intercultural learning, critical thinking, and media literacy.

    Partner Universities:
    University of Hildesheim, Ukrainian Catholic University, UNED Madrid, Erciyes University, University of Salamanca, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, UMCS (Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, FORTH (Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas)

    • Transoceanic Kinship (special issue for Atlantic Studies: Global Currents, together with Dr. Katharina Fackler, Uni Bonn)

    In the context of the recent “oceanic turn” (DeLoughrey 2016), the world’s oceans have not only been (re-)valued as objects of study, but they have inspired a range of formative new theories and methodologies in literary and cultural studies. On the metaphorical level, the oceans’ watery ways provide models for “nonlinear or nonplanar thought” (Blum 2013: 152), placing notions of circulation, fluidity, mobility, and mingling at the center of attention. Thereby, they also beckon a (re-)consideration of “transoceanic connections” (Burnham 2016: 154) between different bodies of water, their cultures, and histories (e.g. DeLoughrey 2007). Increasingly venturing below the ocean’s surface, scholars immerse themselves in the sea’s material and nonhuman dimensions, inquiring into the realm of the biological, the geophysical, and the ecological (e.g. Steinberg 2013).

    This special issue sets forth from Hester Blum’s argument that we may “find capacious possibilities for new forms of relationality through attention to the sea’s properties, conditions, and shaping or eroding forces” (2013: 152), investigating its particular applicability to questions of kinship. More specifically, it uses the notion of kinship as a critical idiom and conceptual lens to examine the oceanic turn’s potential for rethinking forms of (human and nonhuman) belonging. In other words, it considers kinship a particularly salient concept through which to explore the new concepts and ideas coming from oceanic studies.

    • Palgrave Studies in Mediating Kinship, Representation, and Difference

    This book series brings together analyses of familial and kin relationships with emerging and new technologies which allow for the creation, maintenance and expansion of family. We use the term “family” as a working truth with a wide range of meanings in an attempt to address the feelings of family belonging across all aspects of social location: ability, age, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality, gender identity, body size, social class and beyond. This book series aims to explore phenomena located at the intersection of technologies including those which allow for family creation, migration, communication, reunion and the family as a site of difference. The individual volumes in this series will offer insightful analyses of the representations of these phenomena in media, social media, literature, popular culture and corporeal settings.

    • Gender – Affect – Politics:  A Three-Part Radio Series

    In this series, the Intimate Readings Research Group discusses how narratives in different media establish a sense of identity and community through shared emotional experiences, how they mobilize publics and counterpublics, and how they create potential affective worlds that allow readers and audiences to question dominant ideas of gender and sexuality.

    The 3-part series “Gender, Affect, and Politics” is a feature for the monthly queerfeminist magazine “genderfrequenz” (Gender Frequency) at the Graz-based free radio station Radio Helsinki (92,6 MHz). You can stream the episodes on Sundays at 5 p.m. or listen to them later on the website of the Cultural Broadcasting Archive (CBA).

    Episode 1 | Feb. 21st, 2021 | Public Feelings and How to Study Them
    Episode 2 | March 21st, 2021 | Literature, Social Media, and Affective Worldmaking
    Episode 3 | April 18th, 2021 | “Feeling Bad? It Might Be Political!” – Interview with Ann Cvetkovich

    Streaming:
    https://helsinki.at/program/shows/gender-frequenz-sozialpolitisch-feministisch-unbeugsam
    https://fellowship-geschlechterforschung.uni-graz.at/en/symposia/gender-affect-and-politics-a-3-part-series-by-the-intimate-readings-research-group/